Fragments of Prose

Words fly through my mind. Things I read and hear remind me of things I want to express through writing. Sometimes these expressions make it to ink or pixels, and sometimes they just float off into the ether.

Yesterday afternoon I was giving my office a long-overdue straightening. I found a pad on which I had written the beginning of thoughts formed while spending time with my granddaughter.

She's seven, with eight just over three weeks ahead. She looks ten or eleven. It's very hard to watch her and realize the sometimes-childish thoughts that pop out of her head really are appropriate. They're appropriate to an eight-year-old.

With each month that passes in her life, she becomes more sure of herself, more mature. And then some little something will nudge her brain back to its real age and she'll pop out something that makes me scratch my head.

A year ago she was a very—to my mind—insecure little girl. She needed praise and reassurance, in a way that seemed very out of place given her knowledge, skills and abilities. It was in light of one of these pleas for reassurance that words came into my mind.

I See Me In You

Your "do you like it" that accompanies every drawing tugs at my heartstrings. I see little me, aching to be loved, to be cherished.

I can't understand how you cannot know, implicitly and explicitly, how loved and cherished and talented and skilled and humorous and beautiful you are.

…

She is lucky to have been born to parents who know how to help her grow into herself. She's lucky to live in an environment where she has learned how to behave around and with adults as well as children. She is a joy to know and a joy to behold.

And I'm lucky to have a treasured place in her life.